


Inner Truth

by alexdamien



Category: Saint Seiya
Genre: Comedy, Goats, M/M, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Slapstick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26548744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexdamien/pseuds/alexdamien
Summary: Aioros gets a goat and wants Shura to keep it for a while. Shura can't really say no to anything he asks from him though.Written as a birthday present for @Seadragonfics on twitter
Relationships: Capricorn Shura/Sagittarius Aiolos
Comments: 14
Kudos: 29





	Inner Truth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Seadragonfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seadragonfics/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Sea! I hope you have a fantastic day today! I'm so happy to know that you're enjoying your new fandom and I hope it brings you lots of joy. I wish you the best in this coming year and send you lots of hugs!

Shura had come to realize that resurrection was bullshit.

What was the point of it? What was the point of having given it all to pay for the mistakes he had made in betraying the sanctuary, the goddess, and the stupid heart the beat in his heart, only to be dragged back into life and have to actually face the consequences of his actions? It felt, in a way, like being told that his life was not enough to pay for his sins. Hand over your life, again and again, decades of life one after another, and it still wouldn’t make up for his betrayal or for the blood he had spilled.

Wose still, he didn’t disagree.

But that still was no comfort when he had to spend night after night turning around in bed without being able to sleep.

He huffed, and turned around yet again, pulling the covers tighter around him. Stupid life. Stupid resurrection. Stupid-

Someone was in the house of Capricorn. He blinked, suddenly realizing that a powerful cosmos was way, way too close. He sat up in bed. His racing thoughts hadn’t allowed him to notice the presence earlier, but now he felt it like a bright star approaching.

Quickly.

He looked towards the door and it opened on it’s own, a dark figure slipping into his bedroom. Shura extended his palm, allowing Excalibur to awaken.

“Shura! Help me!” cried Aioros, rushing to his bed.

Shura’s heart jumped up into his throat.

“What are you doing here?!” he croaked, scrambling back on the bed away from the shadow that was Aioros, his heart racing in his chest as if he was seeing a ghost.

“Quick, keep this for me! Don’t let Shion find it!” begged Aioros, and pulled the covers off of Shura, shoved something into the bed, and threw the covers back on. Then he ran out of the bedroom and out of the house of Capricorn.

Trembling, Shura felt something moving among the covers and his hand went up to the lamp on the bedside table. He turned it on and pulled the covers away to find a small goat looking up at him.

“E-Eehhh?” he said.

The goat bleated up at him.

* * *

Shura did not get any more sleep that night, and a little before sunrise, he finally gave up and got up to make some coffee while the goat munched on his bedspread.

As he finished making breakfast and served himself a desperately needed cup of coffee, the thought of what had happened seemed like a mad nightmare he might have after an outrageous night of drinking with Deathmask and Aphrodite.

And yet it was true. So true that the goat moved on from chewing on his bedspread to chewing on his oven mitts in the kitchen.

Someone knocked on his door and Shura yelled an indifferent call to let him in.

“Hey, Shura? Have you seen Aioros?” asked Aioria, following the sounds into the kitchen. He startled when he saw the goat. “I can’t find him any-oh. You have a pet now.”

“I don’t,” said Shura, narrowing his eyes at him. “Aioros has a pet and he shoved it on me this morning for some reason”

“Is this why Shion seemed so angry this morning?” asked Aioria, seeing how the goat left the oven mitts to jump on one of the chairs of the kitchen table and started chewing at a few pieces of paper with a report on it. Shura jumped forward to try and save the rest of the papers. He figured if he had enough energy, he would be furious, but mostly, he felt trapped in some kind of nightmare. He gave the goat a light bonk on the head.

“Be grateful that Aioros wants you alive,” he told it.

“Actually I was planning on having it dead,” said Aioros’ voice as he came into the kitchen behind Aioria. He grabbed the goat and lifted it up to look at it. “I saw a tv show about roasted goat and I wanted to try it but Shion said buying a goat wouldn’t fit in the budget for the Sagittarius house so I…may have found a lost goat near the borders of the sanctuary…I think Shion doesn’t know I got it yet, so can it stay with you? Only until I figure out how to make it into dinner. I’ll share with you, I promise!”

Shura narrowed his eyes at him, but any anger that he tried to muster vanished as he saw Aioros’ begging eyes.

Once, he would have given anything to be able to look at those bright eyes once more. He really couldn’t refuse him anything now.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he finally said, and took a swig from his coffee. He felt like he needed it straight into his veins.

“Thanks! Now I gotta make up some excuse for why I was out last night. Shion’s on to me, but I’ll say I was doing extra rounds, ok? You two back me up,” said Aioros, letting the goat back down on the chair. Then he jogged out of the house.

“So you’re just going to hide it here?” asked Aioria, caressing the goat.

“I guess…Shion shouldn’t find out that it’s here until we roast it, but it’s tiny enough to hide,” said Shura.

“And how are you even going to take care of it until then? You know nothing about keeping pets.”

“I’m not going to listen to criticism from someone who has fifty cats in his house.”

Aioria huffed.

“Well, at least I know how to take care of them!” he stuck out his tongue at him and left.

Shura sighed, while the goat moved on to try to eat the tablecloth.

* * *

After deciding that leaving the little menace free to roam the house of Capricorn was too dangerous to both the house and his mental health, Shura stole one of the many cat beds strewn through the Leo house and brought it to his bedroom for the goat to sleep in.

The goat refused, and as soon as the lamp light was off, it made it’s way into his bed and burrowed under the covers.

Shura took several deep breaths and clenched his fists as he felt it moving next to him. He was so ready to kill it, but Aioros’ begging eyes kept flashing through his mind. Just a few days more and it would be dinner. He just needed to keep his composure a little bit more.

He lifted the covers.

“Don’t move too much,” he told it.

The goat bleated up at him and he let the covers fall, then laid back down to wait for sleep that he knew wouldn’t come.

The goat was quite warm though. It made his bed feel less cold than usual.

Ever since he had been brought back, a cold had settled all over him that wouldn’t leave no matter the warmth of the sun. As if a piece of the cold from hell still resided deep within him.

But that night. The world felt a little bit warmer. A little bit brighter.

He fell asleep, and dreamt of bright green eyes.

* * *

Shion called Shura to his office saying that he wanted to talk about his report from the last mission. Frowning at the thought that there might be something wrong with his usually perfect reports, Shura made his way up to see him, and found both Shion and Dohko in the office. Shura blinked as he saw master Dohko sitting in his desk and laughing, while Shion had a look of annoyance in his face.

“Sir?” he asked, announcing himself before crossing through the open doors.

Dohko laughed and Shion motioned for him to come inside.

“Shura. Good work dealing with that hydra,” he said with a tired voice and a deep sigh. Then he held up a piece of paper with a corner torn off. Or rather…clearly bitten off. “I just wonder what kind of animal would take a bite out of a piece of paper”

Shura felt all the blood leaving his face.

“…It was one of Aioria’s cats!” he cried. If he was going down, he was going to at least take someone else down with him.

Shion lifted an eyebrow at him.

“One of his cats has a mouth this big?”

“…He…Has some pretty big cats…”

Shion rolled his eyes and Dohko laughed again.

“It’s ridiculous, but he can keep his goat if he wants it so much,” he said, standing up. “It’s not like I’ll refuse him anything, after all that happened.”

Shura looked down to avoid staring back into those eyes that knew all of his sins. Had his ghost still been around then? To see him kill an innocent man in his name?

Dohko jumped down from the desk and walked towards the door.

“You gotta give us some of it too when you roast it. I saw that show too, it looked delicious,” he said with another laugh.

Shion passed by him too and patted him on the shoulder.

“And you. Your crime was only to believe. To believe and obey against your own heart. Try being a little kinder to yourself,” he said, and handed the paper back to him.

* * *

Shura had no idea how often goats bathed, and he felt too dumb actually researching it, so he decided to just take the goat into the baths with him from time to time. Surprisingly, the goat seemed to like it, which struck him as strange, but he wasn’t about to question what kind of crazy goat Aioros had _‘found’_ in the middle of the night. He just enjoyed the warm water while the goat bleated happily in the great bath with him.

“I suppose you can have a name, until we start calling you dinner,” he told it, and got a happy bleat as a response. “Hmmm, Lancelot would be nice.”

“You’re naming him? And taking a bath with him?” asked Aioros, behind him, coming through the door to the bath.

Shura startled and whirled around to find him staring at them with an amused smile.

“A-Aioros! What are you doing in here?!” he cried, sinking into the water and feeling his whole face burning up.

“I didn’t know this was the bath. I was looking for you,” said Aioros.

The goat got spooked at the sudden splashing and the jumped out of the bath. It hit a small table nearby, making bottles and towels crash to the floor.

“Hey, stop!” yelled Aioros, running to grab it, but it ran between his legs towards the open door.

Fearing that Aioros might have left the main door open as he tended to do, Shura jumped out of the bath and ran towards it, managing to grab its tail, but it twisted around ad headbutted him in the forehead. Shura whined and let go of it, turning around and shielding his face.

“Are you ok?!” asked Aioros, rushing towards him, but his shoes slipped on the tiled floor and he fell over him, barely bracing himself on the floor to avoid crushing the other one underneath him.

Shura flinched and opened his eyes to find Aioros over him, his face so close that he could feel his breath and the warmth of his body. They both froze.

The goat, still free, forgot that it had ever been afraid and skipped around until it jumped on top of Aioros’ back, bleating happily.

“S-Sorry…,” said Aioros, his mouth turning into a smile for a moment before he started laughing.

Shura, wanting desperately to return to the underworld This Very Moment, only covered his face again. He tried to close his legs, but Aioros was still between them and he made no move to get off him, but Shura had lost the capacity to speak.

Aioros reached up and caressed Shura’s hair, pushing it back.

“Hey, don’t take such good care of it,” he said, and his voice so close sent a shiver down Shura’s back. “I don’t want your two to become closer than you and I”

“Idiot,” muttered Shura, sitting hiding his face.

“So you say, but you haven’t invited me to take a bath with you!” laughed Aioros, with his hand still entwinned in Shura’s short hair and so close that the warmth emanating from him was almost overwhelming. As if Shura would get burnt if he only moved a little closer so that their bodies touched.

And yet, hidden behind his hands, Shura couldn’t stop smiling.

Because for the first time, the scent of blood didn’t fill his nose when they were close. Because he finally saw that the warmth of life flowed through Aioros’ body too. That he really was back, no matter how many times Shura still killed him in his nightmares.

* * *

Shura was having breakfast when Aioria entered the house of Capricorn, carrying an outrageously big, fluffy cat in his arms.

“I brought you one of my cats because Aioros says that you need a pet,” he said, sitting across from Shura at the kitchen table.

“I don’t need a pet. I don’t even like animals,” said Shura frowning at him.

The goat, sitting in a different chair while wearing a sweater and a little bow on one of his ears, bleated at them.

Aioria raised an eyebrow at the other saint.

“Uh. You don’t?”

Shura took a sip of his coffee and looked away.

“Aphrodite bought the sweater for him,” he said. “And Deathmask put the bow on his as a joke.”

Aioria stared back at the goat again, and noticed that the sweater had the name _‘Lancelot’_ embroidered.

“So, we’re not having roasted goat anymore,” he said

“You ask Aioros that. He hasn’t come get his goat,” said Shura, shrugging.

Aioria lifted the cat up and rubbed his nose against the cat’s nose.

“You can choose a name for him too. But I call him Shushu,” he said, and smirked at Shura. “Aioros chose the name.”

Shura narrowed his eyes at him.

“You both have terrible taste in names,” he muttered, and kept drinking his coffee.

Aioria stood up, huge cat in his arms.

“Well, if you feel like you could use a pet after we roast Lancelot, you can always come pick one of my cats, but I think Shushu would fit your personality,” he said, walking towards the door.

“Hmph…Hey, Aioria…,” called Shura.

“Uh?” muttered Aioria, looking back at him.

“I’m…I’m sorry.”

“Eh?” asked Aioria, turning around. The cat in his arms climbed up over his shoulders.

“In the end…I knew it was wrong. What I did to Aioros…What I did to you…I should have done better. I shouldn’t have been so blind.”

Aioria looked down for a moment, then sighed and shrugged

“I guess…I’m not…I mean, I still get angry. That I didn’t see it either. That I still believed that he was a traitor. So I guess I understand how it was, to believe the lie”

“Still…I should have-“

Aioria turned his back on him and kept walking towards the door.

“When Aioros takes back his goat you can come to Leo to get Shushu. Bye,” he called as he left.

Shura huffed. In a way, Aioria was still that little child he had been, and the thought comforted him enough to make him smile.

* * *

Shura was sitting on the couch with Lancelot’s head on his lap when Aioros bursted through the door.

“It is time!” he said with a bright smile. He walked up to Shura and picked up Lancelot to look at him. “You’ll become dinner tomorrow!”

Shura felt dread choking him.

“R-Really? So soon?” he asked, standing up to grab Lancelot back.

“I’ve made you watch over him for like a month,” laughed Aioros.

“I don’t mind,” said Shura, petting his head.

“I don’t want to impose any more on you.”

“Really, it’s fine if you need more time.”

“No need. I already asked Aldebaran for his grill.”

Shura barely managed to not flinch.

“Ah…I…I see…,” he said, forcing himself to smile despite the fear growing, cold and sharp in his chest.

“He’s got a little cape… Oh, and he’s got a hat too,” said Aioros, looking at the goat in Shura’s arms.

“Yes, uhm…Aphrodite. He likes to take photos of him.”

“And it’s embroidered with his name.”

Shura scrambled for any explanation to give that wasn’t _‘He looked cuter like that’_

“Aphrodite just recently started embroidering stuff, so he was practicing. Err…Shion said he needed a hobby.”

“He kinda does. Something that isn’t gardening,” said Aioros. “Anyway, I’ll be taking him now.”

Shura stepped away from him. He couldn’t refuse him anything, really, but this was testing him.

“Ah…”

“Is something wrong?”

“Uhm…I could keep him…until tomorrow. If you’re going to roast him tomorrow”

“Uhm, I guess you could, if it wouldn’t be too much to ask of you.”

Shura let down Lancelot on the couch again.

“It wouldn’t be too much,” mumbled Shura, seeing the goat shake his little tail and hop on the couch.

Aioros wrapped his arms around his waist, pulling Shura against him from behind.

“Would you let me?” he asked.

Shura’s heart jumped in his chest. Aioros’ touch felt scalding hot over his body.

“W-what?”

“Would you let me take him and kill him?” asked Aioros. “Even though you love him so much?”

Shura swallowed around the knot on his throat.

“I don’t-,“ he started.

Aioros laughed and pressed a kiss to Shura’s ear.

“I think that was why you went ahead and killed me back then,” he whispered.

Shura felt his blood run cold. Aioros pulled his harder against him.

“Because as soon as duty is presented,” he said. “You will tear off your own heart to fulfill it. I saw it back then. That when I died, something in you died too.”

Shura grabbed Aioros’ hands, so hot over his chest, over his racing heart. How true it had been. He was ready and willing. His arms had been consecrated in service, but so had his whole body, and every beat of his heart. When his fate had already been decided, what more was it to let his soul die off by pieces.

“That isn’t what we’re here for,” whispered Aioros. “It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now. Please…stop paying for things that do not matter anymore.”

“Your death…will always matter,” said Shura.

“It’s been enough of death. I live again. And so do you. Let the dead rest, and the living to live,” he said, and placed a kiss on Shura’s nape, which sent a shiver down his back. “No matter what anyone asks of you. Not me, not Shion, not the gods. Follow what you know is true in your heart.”

“Aioros…”

Shura turned around to stare at those green eyes that had haunted him nearly all his life. In his heart, the one truth he knew that he had loved them every single day since the first time he had seen them.

He draped his arms around Aioros’ shoulders, and closed the distance between their lips.

* * *

They all had grilled fish the next day, and everyone except Shura and Aioros was very disappointed.

Especially when they saw Lancelot, proudly skipping around with a new sweater.

**Author's Note:**

> A bit late, but it's still the 19 in my country! Hahaha!


End file.
